I can honestly say I have done and still do all of these as a PhD student!
Heat fewer rooms. (The living room is top priority.)
Wear a hat, gloves and slippers. Keeping your hands, feet and head warm goes a long way to making you feel comfortable.
Put an extra blanket on your …

Santa's gone green this Christmas. Here, hot off the press, are his 7 top festive green tips:
1. People are an energy source - no not like in the Matrix! Have a party, enjoy yourself in the comfort of knowing all those extra bodies are warming your house for free.
2. Use energy effici…

It’s difficult to know how much energy efficiency measures or renewable energy technologies make a difference to the sale price of your home. There is some evidence that better insulated homes or those with renewables can command more in an open market, but the facts aren’t clea…

Sara Rickards gives a talk as a clean, green, carbon reducing, cost-cutting machine. Aside from being really quite adorable in living in her childhood dream of being a ninja she explains how were are consuming resources 50% faster than the Earth can regenerate. If we all lived as we do in the UK …

You will have noticed that we have recently been posting quite a bit of information about Community Energy. These are schemes which are usually Community-led and often involve off-site energy generation. Some focus more on energy efficiency, and often those which focus on generation s…

With the rising cost of energy and the ever-increasing demand, both you and your house have to get smart to keep bills down. Home energy management systems (HEMS) are devices that monitor, analyse and control energy in your home. HEMS first hit the market back 2008 and are on the rise. In Decembe…

In my previous blog I looked at the smart meter roll-out and how smart meters work. This blog will examine consumer privacy, prepayment customers and concerns with smart meters.
Consumer privacy and prepayment customers
You will have some control over how your energy consumption data is u…

Up to 300,000 young people across the UK now have the opportunity to become an Energy Envoy in order to complete the Volunteering section of their Bronze, Silver or Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
The National Energy Foundation (NEF) has recently launched its Energy Envoys volunteering …

The National Energy Foundation (NEF) recently launched its Energy Envoys volunteering scheme to help tackle the serious problem of the lack of understanding of energy issues and an inability to apply energy knowledge in practice.
This blog is the second in a three-part series through which we…

Last year the National Energy Foundation (NEF) commissioned a national energy literacy survey to find out how much the British public really knows about energy. The survey of 2,058 adults conducted by ComRes revealed troubling results and raised concerns that people think they know more about ene…

Yay! Now I can buy my own home. Well not so fast, wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on?
Right to Buy (RTB) was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980 and is now close to reaching the 2million homes mark. Defenders of the original policy will tell you how it has helped people…

I am writing this with my tongue slightly in my cheek, but I am wondering what you are going to spend your windfall on. I am sure that a rebate of any size will be welcomed by many and for some it could mean a free week or so of electricity use. However, what I really think is that £12 is n…

How to help your company HQ become greener with minimal hassle
Of all the reasons to go green in business, I shall provide you with just two; it is good for the environment, and also, good for your bottom line. If you’re saving money whilst concurrently helping to improve the world in …

This month is a busy one for Green Open Homes with events all over the country, from West Cornwall to Yorkshire. An estimated total of 200 homes are being opened up this spring for visitors, showcasing both low cost energy efficient improvements and larger more expensive options. Event locations …

The private rented sector makes up 18 percent of the total housing stock and contains some of the worst maintained properties in the country, with 1 in 10 privately rented domestic properties falling below EPC band E. The barriers to overcoming this problem are particularly challenging, given the…

How are the political parties going to promote energy efficiency, alleviate fuel poverty or increase renewable energy generation? Are you interested in finding out before you vote on 7th May?
What do you think about the Green party’s commitment to a nationwide retrofit insulation…

Accessing trusted and tailored advice on the full range of energy improving refurbishment options available can be far from easy. In partnership with Carbon Co-op, URBED and OpenEnergyMonitor, the National Energy Foundation is developing My Home Energy Planner, a tool to provide accurate, compreh…

The next deadline for applications to the government’s Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) will be midday on 16 March 2015. The offer has been revised and householders can now apply for up to £5,600 to help with the costs of installing solid wall insulation and other energy savin…

Smart meters have proliferated rapidly in recent years. These devices enable the collection and analysis of detailed energy usage information from householders (and businesses). Proponents say that the data acquired from them could lead to increased efficiency, reduced electrical waste and, ultim…

With a goal of reducing costs and carbon emissions by 80%, Carbon Co-op ran a 'deep retrofit' project for nine of our owner-occupier members last year. The Community Green Deal project was funded by DECC and run as a pilot.
Work on the first phase of houses took place last year,…